Ping Pong Diplomacy Tournament

The Ping Pong Diplomacy Tournament that was conducted Saturday at the Glendale Sports Center was a great success. My special thanks to everyone who attended. This event exposed our sport to a large number of recreational players and also to many City Officials. Plans are already underway to make this an annual event! Debbie Ford, Director of the Glendale Sports Center and her staff provided excellent support for the event and the volunteers from the Institute of International Education were everywhere making sure that all the participants were having a great time.

The tournament featured events for Seniors, Corporate Team Event, Celebrity Exhibition, and an International Team Exhibition. Eleven corporate teams entered and these were, for the most part, recreational players from local businesses. Christine Chang from the Channel 7 News Team and Chis Anthony, extreme skiing star took part in a special exhibition. They also both stayed around to play for quite a while after the exhibition. Throughout the day, many people dropped by to watch the matches. I would estimate we had around 300 spectators in total.

USATT Vice President Christian Lillieroos also took part playing on the winning International Team, with Francisco Mendez and Basil Ibegbu and also partnered, Christine Chang in the Celebrity Exhibition.

After the event concluded, the event winners were honored in a special half-time ceremony at the Raptors Rugby Game led by Glendale Mayor, Harte and Christine Chang from Channel 7 News.

A special "thank you" needs to be given to Josh Harris, Joyce McCready, and Diane McAfee for putting in a long 12-hour day of work helping to run the event. Please see the attached pictures from the event.

Ping Pong Diplomacy Month in Colorado concludes with a special "Black-Tie" Dilopmats Ball being held on September 30th. All the Ping Pong Diplomacy Events are fund-raisers for Denver's Institute of International Studies.